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Leaving is a long duration performance presented in public spaces. It involves eight or more performers working in synchronised duets to explore the actions and images that underpin the everyday drama of leaving and being left behind. The performance is a subtle tweak to the dynamic of the location, and Leaving’s incidental audience consists of travellers, passers-by and perhaps even families saying goodbye to loved ones.
I’m interested in the sense of isolation made possible by moments of leaving: the feeling of being in a crowd, but not part of it, as if a camera has zoomed in on the departure space shared by you and an other. What are the gestures of this space? How much do we have to do before our departures are lifted from the personal and into the public? What if we were to stop and notice these ‘moments before’ the ending, and shift the everyday into the extra-ordinary?
Performances:
13 March 2011, Nottingham train station, as part of Dance4’s Nottdance Festival on 13 March 2011. Performed by Stacey Lister, Rachel Johnson, Adam Davis, Moira Balmer, Dwayne Simms, Ash Brown, Bhavna Champaneri, Raska Radulovic, Radojka Radulovic and Simon Ellis.
23 — 24 April 2010, Kings Cross/St Pancras station, as part of St Pancras’ Reveal Festival. Performed by Rhianne Benger, Soet Byol (Star) Cho, Gemma Donohue, Evangelia Kolyra, Kalia Maliali, Joice Marise, Maria Fernanda Toledo and Amy Watson.
Images by David Severn (Nottingham) and Simon Ellis (St Pancras).
